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SEE Action Publications Library

The State and Local Energy Efficiency Action Network (SEE Action) provides resources for the design and implementation of policies and programs that can drive investment in energy efficiency, create jobs, and reduce consumer costs. These policies and programs can also strengthen the economic competitiveness of state and local entities by lowering the cost of living and doing business.

Learn more about SEE Action activities related to the following policies and programs.

Industrial Energy Efficiency and Combined Heat and Power Working Group

This paper provides four detailed case studies of companies that benefited from participation in their utility’s energy efficiency program offerings and highlights the business value brought to them by participation in these programs.

Industrial Energy Efficiency and Combined Heat and Power Working Group

This paper reviews the existing knowledge and experience from select U.S. states regarding Demand Reduction Induced Price Effects (DRIPE), including New York and Ohio, and the potential for expanded application of the concept of DRIPE by regulators. Policymakers and public utility commissions have a critical role to play in setting the methodology for determining DRIPE, encouraging its capture by utilities, and allocating DRIPE benefits among utilities, various groups of customers, and/or society at large.

Financing Solutions Working Group and Driving Ratepayer-Funded Efficiency through Regulatory Policies Working Group

This report lays the groundwork for a dialogue to explore regulatory and policy mechanisms for ensuring that efficiency financing initiatives provide value for society and protection for consumers. Featuring case studies of Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, California, and Maryland, Making it Count explores emerging questions that jurisdictions will need to answer when considering an increased reliance on financing, including:

Can financing be placed in a regulatory context that preserves accountability while providing sufficient flexibility to program administrators and customers?

Can the tools that have been used to screen traditional energy efficiency programs for cost-effectiveness and assess potential savings and impacts be adapted in ways that make them work for energy efficiency financing programs?

A practical document that presents established policy and program “pathways” to advance demand-side energy efficiency, including:

Ratepayer-funded energy efficiency

Building energy codes

Local government-led efforts, such as building performance policies

State-led efforts, such as energy savings performance contracting

Commercial and industrial private sector approaches, such as strategic energy management and combined heat and power.

The guide presents case studies of successful regional, state, and local approaches to energy efficiency with sources for more information, resources to understand the range of expected savings from energy efficiency, and common protocols for documenting savings.

Leadership by state and local governments is critical to unlock the national energy efficiency opportunities and deliver the benefits of efficiency to all Americans. Developed collaboratively by state and local officials, energy efficiency experts, and real estate practitioners, the Leadership Agenda defines the baseline actions that states and communities can take by 2020 to demonstrate national energy efficiency leadership.

This paper is designed for companies looking to cut costs through energy savings, ratepayer-funded program administrators interested in increasing large industrial company participation in energy efficiency program offerings, and state utility commissions.

The goal of this guide is to support the development, maintenance, and use of accurate and reliable Technical Reference Manuals (TRMs). TRMs provide information primarily used for estimating the energy and demand savings of end-use energy efficiency measures associated with utility customer-funded efficiency programs.

Ensuring that low- and moderate-income (LMI) households have access to energy efficiency is equitable, provides energy savings as a resource to meet energy needs, and can support multiple policy goals, such as affordable energy, job creation, and improved public health. Although the need is great, many LMI households may not be able to afford efficiency improvements or may be inhibited from adopting efficiency for other reasons. Decision-makers across the country are currently exploring the challenges and potential solutions to ramping up adoption of efficiency in LMI households, including the use of financing.

The purpose of this guide is to provide a resource for state utility regulators, utilities, the evaluation community and regulatory stakeholders on methods to measure energy savings from the ENERGY STAR Retail Products Platform. The guidelines outlined in this document were developed by evaluation experts.

This guide describes frameworks for evaluation, measurement, and verification (EM&V) of utility customer–funded energy efficiency programs. The authors reviewed multiple frameworks across the United States and gathered input from experts to prepare this guide. This guide provides the reader with both the contents of an EM&V framework, along with the processes used to develop and update these frameworks.